MentalChat16K combines synthetic counseling data with real-world transcripts from behavioral health interventions to create a comprehensive benchmark for mental health conversational AI.

• Covers diverse conditions including depression, anxiety, and grief
• Includes anonymized transcripts from palliative and hospice care settings
• Designed specifically to improve LLM capabilities in mental health assistance
• Enables better evaluation and development of AI-driven support tools

This research addresses critical gaps in mental health resources by providing a foundation for developing more empathetic, effective conversational AI systems that could expand access to mental health support when human providers are limited.

MentalChat16K: A Benchmark Dataset for Conversational Mental Health Assistance